Funding of political parties in Ukraine: the fight against political corruption is gaining high turns

Members

Funding of political parties in Ukraine: the fight against political corruption is gaining high turns

08 / 16 / 2017

Support party construction in Ukraine andprevent corruption.

Limit the influence on party activities of private individuals and prevent the “privatization” of parties by large companies.

Eliminate buying oligarchs and return the trust of the Ukrainian people to key political actors – politicians and parties.

These tasks are facing Ukrainian society today. And these tasks today are successfully performed by the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) in Ukraine. The law establishes state “donation” of parties (funding of statutory activities of a political party from the state budget), restriction of non-state party support (establishing the size of the marginal charitable contributions from individuals and legal entities to party accounts), the commitment of the party elite to transparent conduct and public reporting (requirements for control and audit of political parties).

According to the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption”, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention is assigned with the functions of political corruption prevention. Acting within its powers, the NACP not only approved the allocation of funds contributed by the state budget for the financing of political parties, but also continued to monitor compliance with statutory restrictions on such funding and purposeful use of funds, by obligatory conducting an independent financial audit of party activities and completeness property reports, income, expenses and financial obligations. As a result of the work of the Department for the Political Corruption Prevention, the NACP has more than 1,200 audited political parties reports for the period from 2016 to the first quarter of 2017. All of this without an automated verification system (NACP together with IFES Ukraine is working on the creation of the Register of e-reporting of political parties) and with the participation of only 13 employees of the Department. According to the results of the analysis of political parties reports, authorized persons comprised 171 protocols on administrative violations, 164 protocols have already been referred to the court. In general, according to the court orders, 70 people were found guilty of committing administrative offenses and brought administrative liability.

The violations concerned the order of submission of the party’s report on property, income, expenses and liabilities of a financial nature and a financial report on the receipt and use of funds of the election fund. The Department for the Prevention of Political Corruption has established the relevant protocols for 132 parties. For violation of the procedure for granting or receiving a contribution in support of a political party, the Department for the Political Corruption Prevention has produced 38 protocols.

At present, the total amount of payments subject to confiscation by court decisions is about 1 million USD, and the amount of imposed fines – more than 300 thousand. Also, based on NACP materials, 14 political parties opened criminal proceedings on detected signs of a criminal offense.

Such experience, especially in terms of identifying violations, judicial practices and punishment, is absolutely new for Ukraine and for its political leaders. However, it will eventually become the usual democratic practice that has been introduced in the West since the 1950s.

At the moment, the NACP is monitoring parties subsidised by companies is limited and oligarchs are deprived of lobbying for their own interests, the formation of institutions of power and of state policy influence. Over time, such state support will become an effective backbone for those politicians and parties who will build their own political and party activities outside the interests of sponsors-oligarchs.